With all of that out of the way, this weekend I visited Cheddar Gorge! They still mature cheddar cheese there in Gough cave. It's not all too far away, but I don't think I'll ever sit in the back of a bus again. These streets are not straight, they have all kinds of curves, and they're bumpy as well. I never knew I had motion sickness until I got to England. (Well...riding in the car while mom's driving in Chicago might've given me a hint...please don't take offense mom, Chicago traffic is just bad!)
They keep the cheese in cages so that the rats don't get to it.
Gough cave is also famous because Cheddar Man, Britain's oldest complete skeleton, was discovered there. They used to keep the remains in the cave, (and the tour guide joked that whenever it would flood they'd have to look for scattered bones,) but when they realized it's significance they moved the remains to the Natural History museum (in London). Gough cave was alright, but I was really just thinking of Spring Mill's cave the whole time, and I thought a little bit about Wind Cave as well. And maybe of that tiny coyote passage tucked away on a deserted farm in Indiana, in which I discovered that I become claustrophobic in spaces my mind does not declare clean. This cave does have mirror pools, which are pretty interesting, but I believe they are manmade, so the naturalist inside of me isn't quite sure what to think of them besides that they're pretty. The image on the left is Aladdin's cave, which has a mirror pool. It is inside of a cavern called St. Paul's Cathedral. The image on the right is from a cavern called Solomon's temple. The largest cavern, Bishop's Palace, can only be entered by going through the river with special gear (scuba tanks basically), so we did not see it. The one below Aladdin's is also in St. Paul's Cathedral. The remaining photo is a mirror pool by the entrance. Also we learned two ways to remember the different between stalactites and stalagmites. Stalactites cling tightly to the ceiling. I always seemed to remember it just by thinking stalagmites has an m in it, and so does bottom.
Cox Cave is smaller but is also in the gorge. I didn't like it because they had different colored lights and it seemed kind of artificial. They placed weird choral hymn music as well. There was some Crystal Quest adventure thing at the end and I got kind of annoyed because I just wanted to walk through it and there kept being people standing around looking at the plastic statues and I really just wanted to get out and back into the sunlight that was just starting to come out.
Another thing you should know is that goats are all over this gorge.
We went to the Cheddar Gorge Cheese company. A lot of my friends got free cheese samples but I felt bad being in a group of like ten people when I knew no one was going to buy any cheese, so I just had what I think they called a cheese stick...it reminded me of cheez-its but it was really good. (No they do not have cheez-its here. Yes I know, what a shame.)
After exiting Cox cave, the 274 steps up to the start of the gorge rim trail. You could see a long way. I climbed the lookout tower as well but the impressive views didn't really start until I hiked up the trail. It was fun and reminded me of climbing mountains in the Rockies or at Turkey Run. I just haven't come across any natural landscapes that compare to the US, I'm sorry. That vacation in June must've spoiled me. However this is a great place to explore little touristy villages and really old buildings and castles and museums.
Well if we're on this subject, I'd like to say what I miss most is having a car. The public transportation is great here, but it's EXPENSIVE. And I already expressed how I feel about busses. Trains are nice though. Maybe I just need to use my railcard more often.
In the first picture on the left you can see the four layers carved into the rock by the four different ice ages.
Well I think I still owe a post about the Sunday I spent in London and perhaps one on Cotswold way, but that's all for tonight!
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